GREATEST: Yeti Out
The trio have crafted an all-encompassing lifestyle with Yeti Out, a music collective and apparel imprint that bridges East and West.
While the rest of us are sleeping, the three founders behind Yeti Out work in synchronicity around the clock, from Hong Kong, Shanghai and London. Erisen Ali and twin brothers Arthur and Tom Bray have crafted an all-encompassing lifestyle with Yeti Out, a music collective and apparel imprint that bridges East and West with pop-up raves, artist bookings, product drops and record releases.
The brand began as a platform for the trio to put on the type of parties and music acts they personally wanted to see while they were in college. Eight years later, Yeti Out has evolved: They’ve thrown parties for Heron Preston and Virgil Abloh; organized a tour for A$AP Mob’s Cozy Boys; debuted Boiler Room in Hong Kong; launched a record label, Silk Road Records; recently released a dip-dyed Vans Authentic; and collaborated with Coach on their Pre-Fall 2019 collection.
The glue that holds Yeti Out all together is its founders’ commitment to the lifestyle they have created for themselves. When your creation is your life, it becomes more than a list of tasks to complete and conference calls to get through—it becomes the purpose you meditate on, push forward in every conversation and discuss telepathically (almost) from halfway around the world. We talked to the founders of Yeti Out about how they maintain their 24-hour Yeti lifestyle.
How’s Singapore been?
ARTHUR BRAY: Good, kind of wild. We have this small window because I got here on Friday, then Tom got here on Saturday and we did this show yesterday. I’m going back this afternoon, so this is the little window. It’s the matrix. We’re making it work.
It’s perfect that I’m grabbing you guys at this moment, because I wanted to ask how you manage to do everything when everyone’s located somewhere different.
ARTHUR BRAY: WeChat’s a huge part of this. A huge part of the business happens in Shanghai, with Tom being based out there. Eri’s my best friend and Tom’s my brother, so in a lot of things we’re quite in sync. In terms of roles, we’re split up in the sense that I take any brand, editorial and art direction leads. Tom’s on the sales side, but also he’s really good at troubleshooting— there’s a lot of logistics stuff that Tom’s able to lead. And then Eri’s the production guy—he knows how to do programming, timetables and calendars.
Even though you guys are best friends and brothers, it can’t always be true that you’re in sync.
ARTHUR BRAY: No, definitely not. It’s a constant process of following up. To be honest, there could be a better system. We’re still trying to figure it out.
ERISEN ALI: It’s kind of crazy with our schedules. Maybe that’s the answer as to why everything does work. There’s never really an end of conversation. There’s never a goodbye. It’s just an open conversation that’s been going on for four years, or however long it’s been. Really it’s been eight years.
There’s never really an end of conversation. There’s never a goodbye. It’s just an open conversation that’s been going on for four years, or however long it’s been.
How do the three of you check in with each other creatively?
TOM BRAY: We’re always on calls sharing ideas. We’re always throwing mood board photos into the WeChat group. We’re always sending each other links. But then whenever we catch up on a phone call or see each other in person, we’ll have brainstorming sessions. It’s definitely a mix between living online and sharing our online inspirations and then turning those inspirations into real conversations when we see each other.
ARTHUR BRAY: Tom’s right. Turning online ideas into offline experiences. You can get that quote, mate. [Laughs]
ERISEN ALI: We make a big deal of when we do see each other. We were just with each other two weeks ago in Hong Kong. We make sure we set a day where we sit down and talk through everything, and that’s usually a very good starting point for making progress.
ARTHUR BRAY: We don’t have to sugarcoat anything. If something’s bad or something’s wack, just say it. Or if something’s really tight and we’re hyped on it, say, ‘Whoa, that’s sick.’ It’s like you’re riding on each other’s enthusiasms. It’s purely based on how the flow goes. I know that definitely sounds less systematic than it probably should.
The Coach collab, for example, was this graphic that was bouncing back and forth on WeChat. Tom goes, ‘What do you think of this?’ And I’ll have input: ‘The acid house thing is tight, but maybe we should add this extra Asian element because we want to have this musical influence, but we also want to be authentic to who we are.’ Honestly, the whole thing happens on WeChat, and Tom’s tweaking it in Photoshop in an airport somewhere. And then before you know it, that gets sent off. We approached the Coach collab the same way we’d approach editing a flyer for a Venus X or A$AP Mob tour.
TOM BRAY: It’s still the same thought process.
ARTHUR BRAY: It probably should be more intricate in many, many ways, because the stakes are higher, the client is bigger, the viewership is larger—but we’re so used to this DIY process of giving feedback. That’s just how things have gone—2018 was a big year in terms of collaborations and noise; for 2019, so many people are knocking and we’ve realized that people need timelines. We run in such a DIY, last-minute scenario that I think this is going to be a test of how we can continue. It’s either people will sync with us and understand this is how we work, or we have to accommodate and adapt to other formats of communication and project management.
It almost makes more sense that you don’t change your system, because that’s what’s working in terms of bringing people in the first place. I wonder if bringing in other people or changing your method would then affect your creative output.
ERISEN ALI: We’re so used to it now and we’ve been doing it for so long that it’s become kind of second nature. What we’ve learned is that patience is really good, and also structuring our days around each other as well. We’re never really switching off, which is a problem in itself as well. As we get older, we’re trying to move away from 24-hour work, but I think it’s going to be hard getting away from that style.
ARTHUR BRAY: When we went into this whole thing, we worked in night life, we were music fans, and we used to run a blog. We didn’t suddenly go, ‘Hey, let’s turn this into a 24-hour scenario.’ This was always: How do we throw events and create really good shows and musical experiences from 6 p.m. to 4 a.m.? But now, Yeti is: We wake up and we’re doing it. Currently, it only works because every hour of the day is put into this project.
TOM BRAY: But it’s also blessed that this lifestyle we live right now is currently our career. As cliché as it sounds, when you love what you do, you don’t really consider it work. Instead of clocking in, clocking out, it’s really a 24-hour Yeti lifestyle.
Is there anything you specifically nurture in the wider community?
TOM BRAY: Through our record label, Silk Road Sounds, we definitely try to push Asia-focused artists one step forward. All the artists that we represent are from the region. For many years—and I’m also responsible for this—foreign artists were brought to Asia and there’s a certain hype around seeing what the foreign talent is. But I think there’s also a lot of amazing talent in the region. It’s always important not to only have a foreign headliner, but to have a local headliner as well.
Last night we had Young Queenz come on rapping in Cantonese and a row of kids in the front knew every word to “Fotan Laiki.” Zouk and Phuture, nightclubs that are big establishments, treated it like an international booking. This is something special in 2019 where we can really have amazing talent in Asia headlining Asia shows.
ARTHUR BRAY: Because we’re from Hong Kong, we always want to be able to put Hong Kong on as much as possible. When we had Young Queenz perform at our Paris Fashion Week show, that to us seems normal because we’d do a Paris Fashion Week party anyway, and it seems natural to us to put on a Hong Kong act. But then the feedback was like, ‘Holy shit, Young Queenz is doing a Paris Fashion Week party?!’ We had Octavian, a rising British artist, come on as a surprise act before. Young Queenz comes in and he just destroys. I think music is more than just words. It’s more than just Cantonese, it’s the whole body language. It’s, like, the dialect of communicating through energy and a vibe. That’s why in 2019 it’s important to put on local artists as well, because people no longer just listen to lyrics. They’re into the whole energy of a certain person.
TOM BRAY: And you can’t download that.
ARTHUR BRAY: You gotta go to a show to see that.
Where you are now is different from where you started. The things you have the most practice in—parties and nightlife—how have they allowed you to do what you’re doing now?
TOM BRAY: We started out doing parties, doing events, doing things DIY. While doing those things we learned how to be multifaceted at different aspects of things. Being from that DIY culture and background, we can actually all do many, many different things. We’re kind of like—what’s the word I’m looking for—
ARTHUR BRAY: Thinking on our feet.
ERISEN ALI: It all evolved with how the world was evolving around us as well. It wasn’t like one day we wanted to become DJs or one day we said let’s turn the blog off. The start of Instagram, the lack of blogs. We were promoters, we had time to fill up. Why pay a rubbish DJ when I could just learn myself to fill up those extra hours at the start? So we learned to DJ and did that. Everything just happened because it happened. It fell in place.
That’s why in 2019 it’s important to put on local artists as well, because people no longer just listen to lyrics. They’re into the whole energy of a certain person.
What is your vision? I know you guys take things as they come, but, ideally, what do you want to see materialize, and how are you working toward making that happen?
ARTHUR BRAY: This year we want to do more than just music. I think Yeti Out is more like an energy and an emotion, being able to push boundaries and let your Yeti Out, be independent and really discover stuff.
TOM BRAY: I think “platform” is always a very strong word. As our brand grows we want the brand to be a platform to put on artists, musicians and creatives that need a force. They might not have the experience or might not have the opportunity, and through working with us, make some cool things happen and through that, impact others to do creative things. We want to be a platform that opens creative outlets.
ERISEN ALI: This year we want to make sure that people really understand the story, the energy, the mission statement of what we’re trying to do and get out there—focusing projects and making sure that they are centered on Yeti Out.
We’ve already changed some culture—we’ve helped the scene, we’ve brought up artists, we’ve made some waves. That’s the best thing we can do. What we would like to do going forward is continue making waves, continue making change. And that’s it actually. The biggest thing we can do is actually make change. How can we make positive change that people recognize and also look up to?
ARTHUR BRAY: There’s a united vision. We want to put out projects and create ripples. Hopefully inspire people to do their own mixes and do their own shows and make their own zines and throw their own parties. I think parties are really important. Parties, they’re like meetings. They’re like think tanks. The conversations you have in smoking areas, the people you meet in queues, these are the people that you end up doing cool projects with or you end up breaking bread with in a safe space.
Often, when you’re put in a situation where you have to think about stuff creatively, nothing comes out, but the ideas that do come out are not during nine-to-five, they’re during 5 a.m. to 9 a.m. It’s less conventional, and I think we live in an age where things don’t need to be as structured. It’s about how you carry that energy forward and inspire others— that’s the main thing.
Interview by Charis Poon
Photography by Alex Maeland